Ancestry.com is Acquired for $300 Million

Thanks to Randy Clark for the tip this morning. I just wrote about this for Marketing Pilgrim but since Ancestry.com employees read my blog, I wanted to talk about it here too. Ancestry.com was acquired by their biggest investor, Spectrum Equity for $300 million. The story looks to have broke on TechCrunch and I didn’t see anything on The Generations Network’s site yet.

Some of my readers have messaged me about conditions at the company – which from what I’ve heard haven’t been very good for some time. The most vocal of these groups are affiliates who went from making thousands per month to hundreds and the numbers keep getting worse. The program went from a top performer in CJ to a very low one. They basically ruined it. Affiliates love residual income like a subscription plan. To me, it’s a win/win. However, the execs somehow think that affiliates don’t deserve the income and continually cut payouts.

I had a brief chat with Paul Allen about the sale and he seems pleased it. He’ll probably funnel the money into his company, World Vital Records, a competitor. Paul loves the genealogy space and I doubt he’ll ever get out of it, it’s in his blood.

TGN should be pleased with the sale and I wonder if it will lead to a future IPO.

“However, the execs somehow think that affiliates don’t deserve the income and continually cut payouts.”

If a company can figure out ways to accomplish the same things w/o having to pay affiliates a cut then it is a beautiful thing to ruin it for the affiliates. Without evidence that Ancestry hurt themselves by cutting down the amount of cash affiliates were making there is no reason to think it is bad for anyone but an affiliate.